Agriculture committee amends and advances Department of Agriculture budget bill, adopts cottage-food, milk-licensing and fee provisions

The Minnesota Senate Committee on Agriculture, Veterans, Broadband and Rural Development on Monday considered Senate File 2458, a budget-establishment bill for the Department of Agriculture, the Board of Animal Health and the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI). After testimony from agency leaders and multiple amendment votes, the committee referred the amended bill to the Finance Committee and authorized staff to make technical edits.

Tom Peterson, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, described the bill as including several of the governor's recommended items such as operating adjustments, funding for elk and wolf depredation compensation, meat-inspection work at MDA, farm safety and wellness programs, and other program investments. "The inclusion of these programs help us do our day to day operations at the department better," Peterson said on the record.

Agency witnesses offered targeted testimony on changes in the bill. Andrea Bobble, deputy commissioner, and Catherine Simon, director of the Food and Feed Safety Division at MDA, explained a proposed restructuring of food-licensing categories to simplify multiple license classes into a single food-handler category with differentiated fee tiers by facility size and risk. The proposal would allow small licensees with gross annual food sales of $50,000 or less to operate up to three locations under one license and would add a $50 application fee (the department said that fee could be amended to be credited toward a first-year license if desired).

Proposed fee language drew questions and amendments. Senator Anderson moved amendments (A10 and A20) to remove certain fee increases and to delete article 6 (food-handler fee and related marketing language). Both amendments failed in committee after debate by members who cited concerns about raising costs for small operators and others who argued the changes were necessary to modernize licensing and fund program needs.

Members then addressed the cottage-food provisions. Senator Kupak offered an amendment (A27) that would create a single-tier registration for cottage-food producers with a flat $30 registration fee, permit limited LLC ownership, allow mailing of cottage-food products, and include an inflation adjustment to the gross-sales cap. Jennifer Caraview, vice president of the Minnesota Cottage Food Producers Association, testified she and her group supported the compromise, noting the new fee represents a modest cost of doing business and would simplify the licensing framework for producers.

The committee also adopted clarifying language (A26) to ensure the cottage-food exemption remains explicit and not inadvertently overridden by the new licensing structure.

Other adopted amendments included technical fixes (A18, A11, A12), funding-source adjustments for AURI (A19), biofuels and sustainable aviation fuel language changes (A29, A24), scaling-back a proposed fertilizer stewardship pilot into a study (A16), milk-purchasing/license clarifications that exempt small producers and purchases of one's own milk (A28), a prohibition on using grant funds for certain administrative salaries for a major food bank recipient (A13), and modifications to livestock investment grant percentages and related funding (A30 adopted after revision). A final motion by Senator Guston referred Senate File 2458, as amended, to the Committee on Finance and authorized staff to make technical corrections.

Votes at a glance: Senate File 2458 as amended — multiple amendments adopted by voice vote; A10 and A20 (fee deletions) were not adopted; bill referred to Finance Committee by voice vote with staff authorization for technical edits.